Week commencing 21st April 2008
 Channel 4's main channel made an operating loss last year for the first time since 1992, according to the broadcaster's annual report published today. The channel was hit by falling ratings for Big Brother and the loss of phone-in revenue as a result of the premium-rate TV competition scandal. Channel 4's chairman, Luke Johnson, warned that the broadcaster had reached a "tipping point" with a new public funding solution now "urgently required" if it is to continue to compete with the BBC. The core Channel 4 service recorded an operating loss of £7.8m after programme costs grew faster than advertising, according to the report. Source - Guardian Media
ITV is to make a range of classic programmes including Brideshead Revisited and Inspector Morse available for sale through iTunes. The deal, which will be the first time that ITV has made TV shows available for sale via a third-party website, will see more than 260 hours of archive shows made available via Apple's iTunes UK store. ITV shows available on the iTunes service from today include Lewis, Cold Feet, Brideshead Revisited, Goodnight Mr Tom, and Gerry Anderson's puppet classic Captain Scarlet. Later this year ITV will make shows including Inspector Morse, The Prisoner, The Saint and adaptations of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and Emma available via iTunes. The shows will be priced at from £1.89p per episode and fans will be able to download complete series. Source - Guardian Media
Kangaroo is gearing up for a possible August launch. Monday, the joint venture of BBC Worldwide, Channel 4 and ITV announced the appointment of BBC online chief Ashley Highfield as Kangaroo's chief executive. The commercial director will be responsible for negotiating third-party content deals and overseeing commercial development of the platform, including all advertising on the site's landing page. Source - Mediaweek
 News International is to cross-sell advertising across its stable of tabloid and quality newspapers for the first time, as part of several possible changes to its commercial operations. The company is thought to be contemplating several options as it looks to cut costs from the sales operations of its newspapers The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and the News of the World. According to sources, however, News International is more likely to opt for retaining its existing, separate ad sales teams and instead set up a specialist unit to cut single deals with advertisers for campaigns to run across all of its newspaper titles. Source - Mediaweek
The Sun was the only UK national daily paper to post a year-on-year rise circulation last month, according to the latest ABC figures. The News International-owned red top posted a March circulation of 3,096,086 copies, a jump of 2.12% year on year, helped by the continuation of its discounted 20p cover price in London and the South East. Arch rival the Daily Mirror saw its March circulation fall by 3.80% year-on-year to 1,483,739 copies, its lowest circulation since the red-top's first audit more than 40 years ago.
Source - Mediaweek
Guardian Media Group subsidiary MEN Media is relaunching its Urban Life Magazine to provide more lifestyle and entertainment news. Urban Life currently focuses on news, sales and rental listings from Manchester's estate agents, as well as providing an entertainment guide for the week ahead. The newly revamped Urban Life, which will be available from 23 April, will now include features around fashion, sport and TV. Entertainment will be covered in a new section, Urban Live. Urban Life is distributed with the Manchester Evening News and has a circulation of 18,000 copies. Source - Mediaweek
Mediaforce, the independent regional sales house that represents Johnston Press and North Wales Newspapers, has won the ad sales contract for Surrey & Berkshire Newspapers from Clacksons. Surrey & Berkshire Newspapers, owned by the Guardian Media Group, publishes free and paid-for weekly and daily titles in the South of England. Its newspapers include the Surrey Advertiser, Reading Post and Reading Evening Post. Mediaforce, whose clients also include Independent Newspapers Ireland, will represent Surrey & Berkshire Newspapers' digital and print advertising. Source - Mediaweek
Archant Life, the regional magazine publisher, is to launch a monthly magazine, North East Life, to be circulated across the region. North East Life launches this month, priced at £1.95, with an initial circulation of around 10,000. It will be sold in supermarkets and newsagents. The title is a replacement for Durham Country Life and will cover subjects including food, wine and poetry. Source - Mediaweek
Rival freesheets London Lite and thelondonpaper face having their distribution slashed across Camden by the local council, as concerns mount over litter problems caused by the papers. With discarded newspapers accounting for around 25% of all street waste across the borough, Camden Council is threatening to cut distribution of the Associated and News International-owned titles by around one-third in key areas, such as King's Cross station and Camden Town. Such a move would deal a major blow to both papers. It is understood thelondonpaper's distribution across Camden borough is 70,000. London Lite's distribution in Camden is not known, although it is thought to be higher than that of its rival.
Source - Mediaweek
 GCap Media is halting the previously announced sale of two of its regional Xfm stations - Xfm Scotland and Xfm Manchester - but is proceeding with the sale of Xfm South Wales. A GCap spokesman said: "It is a decision the GCap board has come to in light of the fact we are to become part of a bigger company [Global Radio], and these stations will fit well within a larger portfolio." Source - Mediaweek
Channel 4 and Global Radio are reported to be exploring how to combine their digital radio transmission services. Global will inherit the first digital audio broadcasting - DAB - multiplex of digital stations with its takeover of GCap Media and Channel 4 leads the consortium that won the Ofcom licence to launch a second multiplex. However, Channel 4 is not expected to launch its DAB multiplex for a year and needs to organise the transmission infrastructure, while Global Radio may be looking to fill gaps in its digital radio broadcasting spectrum. Source - Guardian Media
 Clear Channel Outdoor-owned taxi advertising company, Taxi Media, is expanding beyond London with the establishment of a new regional sales team. A team of field sales executives has been recruited to sell across the Taxi Media portfolio in Scotland, the North, the Midlands and South of England. Taxi Media offers a range of products, such as liveried taxis, supersides, megasides, tip seats, rear windows and branded receipts. Source - Mediaweek
CBS Outdoor will next month launch a co-branded portal with MediaEquals, the soon-to-launch trading platform for offline media, to sell poster space to local advertisers around the UK. The move pits the two companies in competition with WPP's outdoor trading initiative Signposter.com. The CBS portal will seek to target local advertisers looking to buy four-sheets in their vicinity. It will be hosted on CBS Outdoor's website, encouraging local advertisers to click through to view and purchase inventory. CBS Outdoor intends to launch a direct marketing campaign, targeting local advertisers, to boost take-up of the venture. Source - Mediaweek
 Google's UK revenues accounted for 15% of the search engine's total net income according to its first-quarter results, down 1% on the same period last year but up 1% on last year's fourth-quarter results. Google revealed a total rise in net profits of 31% to $1.31bn (£655m) while revenues for the UK totalled $803m (£402m). Total revenues from outside the US accounted for 51% of first-quarter revenues at $2.65bn (£1.3bn) - a 4% rise on last year's first-quarter results. Total revenue from Google's Network websites came to $1.7bn (£830m), compared to $1.3bn (£650m) a year ago. A 20% rise in the number of paid-for-clicks - including those related to ads served on Google sites and those of its AdSense partners - has surprised the industry, following a number of reports that suggested a sharp reduction in click-throughs in the three months to March 2008. In a trading statement, Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said that as the company integrated DoubleClick - the online ad company bought last year for $3.1bn (£1.5bn) - into its ad platform, he envisaged "exciting new ways to improve the user experience and increase value for advertisers and partners." Source - Mediaweek
Thinkbox is relaunching its website next month to reflect the growing area of emerging TV technologies. Thinkbox said the new website, which goes live in May, will help provide agencies and advertisers with detailed information about emerging TV technologies. New content will include a TV Technology Zone, in collaboration with Decipher, including content provided by interactive specialist Weapon7. In addition, the site will host a new specialist planning area and a "Hot Topics" section, addressing the latest TV issues. The site will also be the home of the thinkboxes, the recently launched monthly awards to celebrate the UK's TV ad creativity, in association with Haymarket Brand Media, owner of Media Week. Source - Mediaweek
Microsoft's investment in its UK sales support has paid dividends, with agencies ranking it the best- performing digital media owner on sales service performance. The third Digital Media Owners Image Survey, commissioned by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, asked digital planners, strategists and buyers in agencies to rate their overall experience of dealing with digital media owners. The results for March 2008 show that MSN UK improved its performance by seven percentage points on last September's survey, scoring an approval rating off 58% of respondents saying their experience of dealing with MSN was good. Microsoft commercial director Chris Ward attributed the company's success to its emphasis on staff investment. "Over the past five years, we've built up a team of 94 people working on our display team - with a third of this team looking after sales support. I don't think there is a team that would match that in terms of size," he said. And while Yahoo - whose ad reach includes Blue Lithium and Flickr - fends off a Microsoft takeover, it would appear many digital agencies would welcome such a move from a customer service point of view. Only 38% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that Yahoo's level of service was good - a fall of seven ratings points since the last survey. Source - Mediaweek
 UK Box Office Office Charts 18th - 20th April
1. 21 (12A)
2. Fool's Gold (12A)
3. In Bruges (18)
4. Street Kings (15)
5. Son Of Rambow (12A)
6. The Spiderwick Chronicles (PG)
7. Step Up 2 (PG)
8. 27 Dresses (12A)
9. Happy-go-lucky (15)
10. Horton Hears A Who (U)
source : Nielsen EDI
Edited by Total Media Direct |
